by John Ruskin 1819-1900

The Court of the Past

We should not force ourselves and ‘our values’ onto the writers of the past.

1865

Queen Victoria 1837-1901

Introduction

In Sesame and Lilies, John Ruskin warned us not to try to manipulate the great writers of the past into agreeing with us or our times. And if we have so little respect for them as to want to try, we would be better off not entering the ‘court of the past’ at all.

by John Ruskin 1819-1900

This court of the past differs from all living aristocracy in this:— it is open to labour and to merit, but to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates.* In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portières of that silent Faubourg St Germain,* there is but brief question:— “Do you deserve to enter?”* “Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms? — no. If you will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain; but here we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if you would recognise our presence.”

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* Elysium was the ancient Greeks’ abode of the blessed dead, as contrasted with Hades.

* Faubourg St Germain was for many generations Paris’s fashionable intellectual centre. Ruskin’s idea was that the congregation of dead writers in Elysium, the silent ‘court of the past’, makes the abode of the blessed into a grand salon like Faubourg St Germain — or in British terms, Walter Scott’s Abbotsford, or Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury.

* Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) imagined that above the gates of Hades was written: “Abandon hope all ye that enter here”. Ruskin now suggests a message for neighbouring Elysium: “Do you deserve to enter?”.

Précis

In Sesame and Lilies, John Ruskin painted an image of the great writers of the past as a royal court in Elysium, to which we mortal readers may gain admission only if we deserve it. To deserve it, we must fit ourselves to their company, and our thoughts to theirs, because they will not lower themselves to ours.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

What did Ruskin mean by ‘the court of the past’?

Suggestion

Great writers who are no longer living.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

We can persuade the living. We cannot persuade the dead.

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

IAgree. IIBeyond. IIIChange.

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